5 ms·

The UK too has only just introduced the concept of "no-fault divorce": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

The UK too has only just introduced the concept of "no-fault divorce": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce#United_Kingdo... Previously couples had to apportion blame for the marriage breakdown, which encouraged it to be an adversarial and rancorous process.

mellosouls 6y ago
This makes it sound like no fault divorce is a good thing. No doubt there are positives but it's difficult to see how it isn't just another step along the path of the trivialising of marriage. Perhaps we should be looking at other approaches to the problem of unhappy marriages, in particular the due diligence of people in choosing their partners - especially when there are children involved or intended. I'm not suggesting a method or solution, just pointing out making divorce easier is not universally considered a good thing or moral win.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  > trivialising of marriage Maybe we've taken marriage too seriously for hundreds/thousands of years, and we're finally progressing as a global society to realize that till-death-do-us-part might be too big of a commitment for some 20-somethings. After all, what's really the difference between being married and living with your significant other besides some laws that are based on the old views of marriage. (Granted, with kids things get tricky, but making sure parents stick around and help raise kids to me seems rather independent on whether a couple was married or not - seems more to do with someone's inner beliefs)
  - thrden 6y ago
    Even if we set aside any potential spiritual, or child-rearing value. Marriage is a very important institution in helping people achieve economic mobility, it increases your household income significantly, as well as seriously reducing your cost of living. Anecdotally, my cost of living was drastically reduced when my girlfriend and I moved in together (thereby splitting a 1BR), however given that we aren't married we individually have to save a good amount of money in cash accounts in case of a breakup. If we were married, we could reduce our cash savings by 50% and instead invest that money into the open market. Moreover, we would be far more likely to take care of the other financially if one went to school if we were married. Marriage, and the commitment it entails changes the attitudes of individuals towards each other by ensuring that we can plan for a combined future. all that exists outside of societally constructed benefits like joint taxation and healthcare.
    - bluedevil2k 6y ago
      But all your examples of "planning for the future as a married couple" could immediately be for naught if one of you decides to divorce. No different than if your girlfriend decides to move out. Economic mobility could be achieved with an official document saying "You're Married" or without it. It's about the commitment to each other, a commitment that can be as strong or as weak as the two people are willing to make it.
      - mellosouls 6y ago
        But all your examples of "planning for the future as a married couple" could immediately be for naught if one of you decides to divorce. No different than if your girlfriend decides to move out. Marriage is not girlfriend/boyfriend. It's far more serious, and making it a commitment to be contemplated deeply before entering - and not easily breakable - is the whole point of highlighting the problem of trivialising it.
        bluedevil2k 6y ago
        > It's far more serious, and making it a commitment to be contemplated deeply before entering - and not easily breakable Marriage is rooted in religion, for better or worse, and these thoughts about making marriage some unbreakable for-life bond are based on religious beliefs hundreds of years old. Catholics couldn't divorce, ever! We live in a more enlightened age, one where religious thoughts have less to do with forging our societal beliefs. Can't we progress with our thoughts on marriage as well? Marriage for life would mean for many an unhappy and unfulfilling life. Perhaps a life of violence or depression. Is that we want to force people into? A life without choice, a life without happiness?
        sukilot 6y ago
        "religion" is a legal system f government that isn't grounded in a geographically-defined military. It can do good or bad just like a political system.
        6y ago
  - SomeHacker44 6y ago
    Personally I think marriage should be a la carte. Choose which legal benefits and obligations you want, what timeline (renewable) and so forth. The problem is that the legal one size fits all rule of marriage doesn't fit most. And, that size differs from country to country and even within countries (eg US states).
  - NateEag 6y ago
    The obvious difference is that in Western traditions, a married couple has explicitly vowed to stay with one another through thick and thin, until death separates you. If you trust your partner to keep their word, there is comfort in knowing you are a team, no matter what crazy stuff happens. If your partner refuses to make that promise (that promise being what makes it a marriage, IMO), well, you might want to re-evaluate how much you trust them and why.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      History has shown that a sizable chunk of those promises were either lies, or unrealistic. Many who refuse to marry do so out of an acknowledgement of how effed up the marriages they have seen are. People who are truly untrustworthy are just as likely to lie about their level of commitment to a relationship anyway.
      - NateEag 6y ago
        Yes. People are mostly not trustworthy. Refusing to commit yourself seems more like perpetuating that problem than addressing it, to me. Maybe I'm missing something.
        waterhouse 6y ago
        Consider the "unrealistic" part. How certain can you be that it will work out? Do you think all marriage-ending issues are foreseeable? One source tells me that 41% of first marriages end in divorce. Divorce today is not generally considered a pleasant process, yet they go through with it, which is evidence that there was something seriously wrong with the relationship. Put differently, 59% of marriages were sufficiently correct choices. Suppose couples spent an additional year on scrutiny before getting married. How much would that improve the success ratio? To 70%? 80%? What about the remaining 20%? Once they discover their choice was sufficiently wrong to want to go through with one of today's divorces, what should they do? Stick it out no matter how bad it gets? Really? Or if they do divorce, then what have you achieved? If they delayed by three years and got to 90%, would that be worth it?
  - uhguvku 6y ago
    The current concept of marriage is very recent, maybe 200-300 years old. Marriage was never romantic but it was a political and business deal. Historically, very few people married their lovers. Powerful men married powerful women and then they had harems. Not only that wives often recruited younger women for their husbands' harems. Most peasants were married through arranged marriages that benefitted their families.
  - 52-6F-62 6y ago
    For those reasons and others my partner and I haven’t married, but we file our taxes here in Canada (and are legally considered, in Ontario specifically) as a “common-law” couple. We wear rings and have decided on what works for us, between us. It’s working quite well for us for now. We’ve been together longer than any of my old, married (and since divorced) friends have. https://globalnews.ca/news/6532711/common-law-vs-marriage/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6532711/common-law-vs-marriage/
- gwd 6y ago
  > Perhaps we should be looking at other approaches to the problem of unhappy marriages, in particular the due diligence of people in choosing their partners - especially when there are children involved or intended. As someone who's been through a divorce, I think this is the wrong perspective. The law should always be considered a backstop for when other solutions fail, not a first solution to aim for. For instance, if you have a disagreement with your neighbor about a fence or a tree or something, you should always go and talk to them first. If you're a business and have a disagreement about the contract with some other business, you should always go and try to sort it out without lawyers first. Making it possible to sue your neighbor or your business partner when discussion fails to produce results doesn't mean that you're "trivializing neighborhood relations". Well-written and consistently-applied laws means, ideally, that when you have those conversations with your neighbor or your business partner, you never end up going to court, because everyone knows exactly what's going to happen. The law in the UK is already written to try to encourage people to save their marriage: In the absence of adultery or physical abuse, you can generally only file for a divorce after you've been separated for 2 years; and this includes provisions for short stints of living together to give it a second chance. (E.g., if you separate for 6 months, come back together for 3 months, and then separate again, the "clock" doesn't start over, and you can file for divorce after another 15 months.) By the time that people move out, the relationship is almost always in a really bad state; and by the time you've lived separately for 2 years, there's almost zero chance you're going to get back together. At that point what you have is no longer a marriage, and the divorce proceedings is only recognizing legally what has already happened relationally. I mean, yes, we as a society should also be trying to prevent disaster-in-waiting marriages from happening; and should be investing time trying to strengthen marriages -- even marriages which are relatively stable. Making divorce difficult won't save marriages, but it does add all kinds of perverse incentives. If you have to prove adultery or abuse to file, then suddenly you have to bring in private investigators to spy on people, and sling around reputation-destroying accusations in public, making the whole thing a lot more nasty.

mellosouls 6y ago

This makes it sound like no fault divorce is a good thing. No doubt there are positives but it's difficult to see how it isn't just another step along the path of the trivialising of marriage. Perhaps we should be looking at other approaches to the problem of unhappy marriages, in particular the due diligence of people in choosing their partners - especially when there are children involved or intended. I'm not suggesting a method or solution, just pointing out making divorce easier is not universally considered a good thing or moral win.

bluedevil2k 6y ago
> trivialising of marriage Maybe we've taken marriage too seriously for hundreds/thousands of years, and we're finally progressing as a global society to realize that till-death-do-us-part might be too big of a commitment for some 20-somethings. After all, what's really the difference between being married and living with your significant other besides some laws that are based on the old views of marriage. (Granted, with kids things get tricky, but making sure parents stick around and help raise kids to me seems rather independent on whether a couple was married or not - seems more to do with someone's inner beliefs)
- thrden 6y ago
  Even if we set aside any potential spiritual, or child-rearing value. Marriage is a very important institution in helping people achieve economic mobility, it increases your household income significantly, as well as seriously reducing your cost of living. Anecdotally, my cost of living was drastically reduced when my girlfriend and I moved in together (thereby splitting a 1BR), however given that we aren't married we individually have to save a good amount of money in cash accounts in case of a breakup. If we were married, we could reduce our cash savings by 50% and instead invest that money into the open market. Moreover, we would be far more likely to take care of the other financially if one went to school if we were married. Marriage, and the commitment it entails changes the attitudes of individuals towards each other by ensuring that we can plan for a combined future. all that exists outside of societally constructed benefits like joint taxation and healthcare.
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    But all your examples of "planning for the future as a married couple" could immediately be for naught if one of you decides to divorce. No different than if your girlfriend decides to move out. Economic mobility could be achieved with an official document saying "You're Married" or without it. It's about the commitment to each other, a commitment that can be as strong or as weak as the two people are willing to make it.
    - mellosouls 6y ago
      But all your examples of "planning for the future as a married couple" could immediately be for naught if one of you decides to divorce. No different than if your girlfriend decides to move out. Marriage is not girlfriend/boyfriend. It's far more serious, and making it a commitment to be contemplated deeply before entering - and not easily breakable - is the whole point of highlighting the problem of trivialising it.
      - bluedevil2k 6y ago
        > It's far more serious, and making it a commitment to be contemplated deeply before entering - and not easily breakable Marriage is rooted in religion, for better or worse, and these thoughts about making marriage some unbreakable for-life bond are based on religious beliefs hundreds of years old. Catholics couldn't divorce, ever! We live in a more enlightened age, one where religious thoughts have less to do with forging our societal beliefs. Can't we progress with our thoughts on marriage as well? Marriage for life would mean for many an unhappy and unfulfilling life. Perhaps a life of violence or depression. Is that we want to force people into? A life without choice, a life without happiness?
        sukilot 6y ago
        "religion" is a legal system f government that isn't grounded in a geographically-defined military. It can do good or bad just like a political system.
        6y ago
- SomeHacker44 6y ago
  Personally I think marriage should be a la carte. Choose which legal benefits and obligations you want, what timeline (renewable) and so forth. The problem is that the legal one size fits all rule of marriage doesn't fit most. And, that size differs from country to country and even within countries (eg US states).
- NateEag 6y ago
  The obvious difference is that in Western traditions, a married couple has explicitly vowed to stay with one another through thick and thin, until death separates you. If you trust your partner to keep their word, there is comfort in knowing you are a team, no matter what crazy stuff happens. If your partner refuses to make that promise (that promise being what makes it a marriage, IMO), well, you might want to re-evaluate how much you trust them and why.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    History has shown that a sizable chunk of those promises were either lies, or unrealistic. Many who refuse to marry do so out of an acknowledgement of how effed up the marriages they have seen are. People who are truly untrustworthy are just as likely to lie about their level of commitment to a relationship anyway.
    - NateEag 6y ago
      Yes. People are mostly not trustworthy. Refusing to commit yourself seems more like perpetuating that problem than addressing it, to me. Maybe I'm missing something.
      - waterhouse 6y ago
        Consider the "unrealistic" part. How certain can you be that it will work out? Do you think all marriage-ending issues are foreseeable? One source tells me that 41% of first marriages end in divorce. Divorce today is not generally considered a pleasant process, yet they go through with it, which is evidence that there was something seriously wrong with the relationship. Put differently, 59% of marriages were sufficiently correct choices. Suppose couples spent an additional year on scrutiny before getting married. How much would that improve the success ratio? To 70%? 80%? What about the remaining 20%? Once they discover their choice was sufficiently wrong to want to go through with one of today's divorces, what should they do? Stick it out no matter how bad it gets? Really? Or if they do divorce, then what have you achieved? If they delayed by three years and got to 90%, would that be worth it?
- uhguvku 6y ago
  The current concept of marriage is very recent, maybe 200-300 years old. Marriage was never romantic but it was a political and business deal. Historically, very few people married their lovers. Powerful men married powerful women and then they had harems. Not only that wives often recruited younger women for their husbands' harems. Most peasants were married through arranged marriages that benefitted their families.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  For those reasons and others my partner and I haven’t married, but we file our taxes here in Canada (and are legally considered, in Ontario specifically) as a “common-law” couple. We wear rings and have decided on what works for us, between us. It’s working quite well for us for now. We’ve been together longer than any of my old, married (and since divorced) friends have. https://globalnews.ca/news/6532711/common-law-vs-marriage/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6532711/common-law-vs-marriage/
gwd 6y ago
> Perhaps we should be looking at other approaches to the problem of unhappy marriages, in particular the due diligence of people in choosing their partners - especially when there are children involved or intended. As someone who's been through a divorce, I think this is the wrong perspective. The law should always be considered a backstop for when other solutions fail, not a first solution to aim for. For instance, if you have a disagreement with your neighbor about a fence or a tree or something, you should always go and talk to them first. If you're a business and have a disagreement about the contract with some other business, you should always go and try to sort it out without lawyers first. Making it possible to sue your neighbor or your business partner when discussion fails to produce results doesn't mean that you're "trivializing neighborhood relations". Well-written and consistently-applied laws means, ideally, that when you have those conversations with your neighbor or your business partner, you never end up going to court, because everyone knows exactly what's going to happen. The law in the UK is already written to try to encourage people to save their marriage: In the absence of adultery or physical abuse, you can generally only file for a divorce after you've been separated for 2 years; and this includes provisions for short stints of living together to give it a second chance. (E.g., if you separate for 6 months, come back together for 3 months, and then separate again, the "clock" doesn't start over, and you can file for divorce after another 15 months.) By the time that people move out, the relationship is almost always in a really bad state; and by the time you've lived separately for 2 years, there's almost zero chance you're going to get back together. At that point what you have is no longer a marriage, and the divorce proceedings is only recognizing legally what has already happened relationally. I mean, yes, we as a society should also be trying to prevent disaster-in-waiting marriages from happening; and should be investing time trying to strengthen marriages -- even marriages which are relatively stable. Making divorce difficult won't save marriages, but it does add all kinds of perverse incentives. If you have to prove adultery or abuse to file, then suddenly you have to bring in private investigators to spy on people, and sling around reputation-destroying accusations in public, making the whole thing a lot more nasty.